Nightmare
by Sylistra the scholar
Summary: Even if you get to the center, you'll never get out again" Hoggle said in his grating tone. He was wrong though, Sarah did get out...but was that honestly a good thing? Reviews appreciated as always. Sylistra's challenge prompt!


**Disclaimer: I do not own labyrinth, nor its characters, I am merely borrowing them.**

**A/N: Okay this story is based off a nightmare I had a little while ago, and it scared the bejesus outta me. Only I never saw the Labyrinth or felt it's pain…I just felt the anguish of unknown faces, the wasteland part is true and the line that mister Unseelie Fae man said (his name that I have dubbed him) at the end was "No time for dreaming, precious, you have to stop the screaming"…*gulp* how much sleep do you think I got after that? Yep not much…and since then I haven't remembered A. Single. Dream. So if any of you people are screaming STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP. I LIKE DREAMING! It makes me feel happy, and inspires me….so any one of you who screams or know someone screaming…make. It. Stop.**

**Summary: "Even if you get to the center, you'll never get out again" - Hoggle was wrong; she did get out but was that really a good thing?**

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She was normal, no matter what anyone said, she considered herself normal. Normal face, normal hair, normal speech patterns, she was normal. She had the normal friends and the normal grades, she had the normal high school drama and the normal dates. Sarah Williams was blissfully normal, or so she thought. However, she wasn't always normal. She used to be an eccentric girl, who was spoiled, stuck up, and tended to be cruel. She was beautiful and dressed as if she just walked out of a Ren-Faire and she had always carried around a little red book called "The Labyrinth" and some other book that was twice the size of her head in most cases and was filled to the brim with fairy tales and such. Therefore, when one day she suddenly had no more fairy tales wrapped in her arms, and she dressed in bright colors and plastic like her fellow teens of the 80s, she had gotten a lot of attention. Her entire demeanor changed in one weekend, just one. She went from the proverbial Ice-Princess Bitch of high school to being nice, normal. She cracked more jokes, fell out of that lacy dreamlike shell, and became a typical teen. Most of her peers took to her better after awhile and her family adored this change in behavior almost instantaneously. Her Stepmother took this as a great sign and her father nearly had a heart attack of amazement when she brought friends home for the first time since elementary school. Her 16th birthday she invited her new friends to the party. And no, it wasn't the friends she had promised to call; it was her nice, normal friends. The Friends that never accepted her beforehand. The 'friends' that put "kick-me" signs and threw spitballs at her in her more interesting years. Her friends were the ones who cried in amazement at the site of a B- on a test and scorned the A+'s with a passion.

Now though our Sarah seemed to enjoy her change in behavior, she did not. She hated herself the way she was, and hated her life. She just didn't want to admit it. Unlike most, Sarah touched magic, she felt the real thing. She was not a Wicca child pretending to believe, just to scare their parents. She did not pray to any goddesses or acted as if she was a witch. She just believed in the old tales, and she touched magic. She more then touched it; she danced with it, fought against it, befriended it, defeated it, denied its taint, and loved it. So why did she avoid this magic when she adored it so? She feared it; she feared that if she grew any closer to that magic she would all but be consumed by it. She touched magic in its rawest forms, and she found it addictive. Nothing terrified her more. By spending mere hours with magic, she was lost to it. So when she managed to escape the taint, she knew she had to rid herself of all connections to the magic. So she put away her toys and costumes, she stored her fairy books and removed her dolls, passing them on to her baby brother. She went to a clothing store with her stepmother and bought the mainstream clothes that she honestly would rather burn then wear…but she bought and wore them anyway. She had to grow out of the taint, she had to ignore the movements in the shadows and she especially ignored any birds flying overhead, particularly the barn owl. So, Sarah Williams then allowed her metamorphosis to completely manifest and became normal, praying to never touch that magic again, and in a few short years it was an ugly memory. She had adjusted and grew to enjoy the normal life. She even lost the sight that pierced through the glamour …for a while.

It started when she was in college, barely 20 she was doing exceptionally well as a Math major; she lived a life of practicality and little imagination. She partied like other college goers, occasionally drank, but very little and it was scarce she ever had more then a light buzz. Sarah, was the epitome of a college student. So when Sarah started finding owl feathers in her blankets and started seeing movements in the shadows again, Sarah grew fearful. She immediately recalled her old mantra, "Iron, salt, watch your dreams, do not wish, and do not call them, they have no power over me".

She remembered saying it like a prayer. She remembered the words, so many words. It got worse too, it went from owl feathers to owls, and crystals. She found them everywhere. Her friends suddenly adored owls and wore crystal jewelry. Her teachers started using crystal paperweights; men started wearing poet shirts and leather jackets. Art majors suddenly became overly interested with M.C. Escher, particularly a piece that had several sets of stairs. She heard his voice on all the stereos. It was a phenomenon and Sarah forced herself to ignore it. She began denying the magic that surged around her. She took deep breaths, put salt on all her food, and wore an iron medallion under her shirt. She slept less and less, drinking more coffee and continued to ignore the signs. When she did sleep they were memories…all but one dream that had yet to touch her...until one night she just never knew what was coming to her.

"Sarah! Sarah!" cried her friend Emily.

"Hmm? Oh uh what?" Sarah asked coming out of a daze.

"Are you feeling alright?" Emily asked.

"N- Yes, I am just tired. I haven't slept in a day or so…" Sarah replied with a yawn, _and I wont if these dreams keep up_, she added in her mind.

"Hon, I don't know why you have suddenly stopped sleeping, but you shouldn't let your dreams bother you. They never have before…I don't know why they started to now" Emily commented confusedly.

"It's different Em, they…they seem so much more real" she sighed, "I can't explain it, you wouldn't believe me, Hell I barely believe me" She said barely above a mumble.

"Maybe you are just stressing over finals, why don't you just relax for awhile?" Emily said.

"Maybe…I just got…to…umm…" Sarah shrugged angrily "My GOD, I have no idea what is wrong with me" Sarah cried frustratingly, slumping with her hair covering her face in an inky black curtain.

_Lie_, Sarah thought, _you know what's wrong, you are just too cowardly to fight back!_

"I gotta go Emily, I'll talk to you later" Sarah said coming to a decision.

"Okay, if you need me, I am just a phone call away right?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, I'll call" Sarah said in a fashion that simply screamed 'nostalgia' not that she would ever admit it. No of course, not, she was normal, and normal girls never noticed such things.

After Sarah returned to her dorm, she slumped onto her bed letting her bag fall as she made a face plant into a heart-shaped pillow. She took off her jacket and kicked off her shoes as she fell and pulled a soft green blanket over her and allowed herself to doze. As she fell into the thrall of the sandman's grasp she allowed herself to remember, allowed her normalcy to fall away, if only just for the moment. Then Sarah dreamed…

_Sarah watched herself in her dream as she arose quite normally and completed her normal routine. The dream was blissfully normal…no memories, no flashing images of mismatched eyes and barn owls, just a normal day. To anyone other dreamer this would be a painful experience, to Sarah it was a relief. So she relaxed in her sleep, any tension left in Sarah's body on the material plane had long since left her. _

_It wasn't until Sarah attended her earliest morning class at 7:00 AM that things got abnormal. Sarah watched as she entered the class and pulled out her notes, along with a few sharpened pencils and a book. Despite her crave for normalcy, she still read, always had and always will, it was one of those things that she could never change. So real Sarah watched her dream doppelganger imitate her swimmingly, she didn't even catch the uttered wish on her lips. It was when the professor entered the room in his usual storm, that thunder clashed in a fashionable pun that Sarah tensed. She suddenly felt the ground stir and suddenly she saw through herself in the first person fashion, rather then her previous angle. Sarah spun about suddenly hearing an echo of her wish and the storm grew more powerful, and the quaking earth stopped. And suddenly, the power was out in a wretched clash of lightening and thunder. It was then Sarah noticed that she was now alone. As if she knew what was coming next, she bolted for the open door, only to watch it shut and giggles sound. Sarah then turned around defiantly waiting, waiting to settle this dream or wake up. It was then lightening flashed again, lighting the room revealing a figure leaning on the professor's desk. _

_The figure was male, but not a man, no not a man, and most certainly not the one she was expecting. He was tall at a towering 6' 3" , he had long dark brown locks that were soft and somewhat oily as they framed his face, somewhat hiding the most cold cobalt grey eyes Sarah had ever seen. His smile was sharp and seemingly twisted, his head angled menacingly. He wore a well-tailored suit; it was blue and by no means normal. It was more of a Victorian dandy's style. He wore white gloves and gripped a long black cane that had silver glowing runes engraved on the cane's shaft. He was obviously Fae and quite handsome, but simply not Sarah's type._

"_Who are you?" Sarah hissed, in no mood for games._

"_If you don't know what I am, then there is no point in my telling you," Said the contradictory Fae._

"_Iron, salt, I think I know what you are well enough. My question was; who are you?" Sarah quipped._

_The Fae never answered, instead he laughed and smashed a crystal onto the ground, and suddenly the world shifted. Sarah's surroundings melted and molded into an indiscernible fog. When it began reshaping into a black abyss, Sarah spun about trying to discover what was happening to her. Her surroundings shifted into an eternal blackness, the air was a grey sentient fog and the ground was a dark muck. Sarah shut her eyes in fear, praying she could wake up, but she never did. When Sarah finally opened her eyes, it was then she suddenly cried out in anguish. She heard screaming, so much screaming. The voices…they seemed so familiar. It was then her mind suddenly flashed images, none that rang with familiarity, simply pain. Sarah cried out as she heard a shout for her name: "SARAH!" "My Lady!" "SAWAH!". With each cry, Sarah was faced with gruesome images of the demise of her friends, and as others less familiar screamed for her in either aid or for her demise, she did not know, all she saw was carnage and pain. The Labyrinth became a winding river of blood and The Castle beyond the Goblin City was the source of it all. The Flashing images moved toward the castle with blinding speed. Sarah suddenly crouched down into the abysmal muck, her strength wavering in tears and shouts as the pain intensified. _

_When her eyes were graced with the inside of the Goblin Castle, she witnessed the source of all the pain the Labyrinth felt. Jareth was not standing imposingly as if he were the cause. He too cried out as he crouched on the ground, in a similar fashion in relation to Sarah. Her breath hitched as she felt him to cry her name. He was in so much pain, writhing and thrashing. His lithe alabaster limbs flailed about as if he were in a painful seize. Suddenly he stopped…his body was still, and Sarah screamed. She suddenly jumped out towards the Goblin King's image, despite the fact it was only displayed behind her eyes. She cried his name apologizing. After not being able to reach him after so many dives, she slumped in the muck crying. She began rocking herself forward and back as she saw the light fade from Jareth's eyes. _

_It was then her surroundings shifted to her place on the hill where her journey had begun so long ago. Sarah remained crouched and as she saw, the remains of the Labyrinth after the shouts had abated and the blood had dried. Sarah screamed a primal unintelligible wail of grief. She ripped at her hair and tried to tear at her skin but the mysterious Fae gripped her wrists in his left hand. It was then he held the cane in his right, brandished as a weapon. "No time for dreaming, precious, you have to stop the screaming" The cane came down, the runes flashed as Sarah felt the searing pain from the contact and all Sarah knew was darkness._

Sarah awoke in a flash, sitting up and on her feet almost instantly. Her breathing grew erratic and she paced about covering her face in a fearful manner. She constantly muttered while the images from the passed dream flashed behind her eyes. She felt as if she could simply die, and tears washed over her. After several minutes of meandering thoughts and everlasting tears, she slumped into her pillow, cursing the day she ever found that damn book. It was then Sarah sensed a presence.

"Why, why am I cursed to see these things?" Sarah asked the darkness about her.

It was then the familiar form of the unfamiliar Fae stepped from the shadows in a stalking and serious manner.

"Because you won," He hissed.

"Has this already happened?" Sarah cried making eye contact with the Fae.

"No, but it wont be long. Why? Is the precious heroine going to strike again? Are you going to save them precious?" He asked.

Sarah then hissed in her ever-so defiant manner, "Without a doubt".

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**A/N: BUM BUM BUUUUHHHH**

**Guess what, this isn't going to be continued. This is a challenge for all of the good suspenseful writers out there because I am in the mood for an epic adventure and a lot of you guys are WAY better at the bad ass Sarah then I, so I leave it to you guys. All I ask is that you put this in an epilogue or prologue or something leading it back to this challenge. As long as it is Cited to Sylistra The Scholar, we are good. I have no honest requirements, just that it isn't all fluffy because Sarah has to save the Labyrinth you know, she can't spend all her time giving Jareth moon-eyes. Anyway this is one of my last Labyrinth fanfics, cause frankly I have my own stuff to work on. I won't ever truly stop Labyrinth fanfiction, because well muses are evil like that, but rarely will they exceed more then one chapter. I mean I still have to write "The Paladin's Wrath" (sequel to "The Paladin's Grace" A story I wrote for Forgotten realms, and won out my county in the writing fair and is in the state competition -which I will never stop saying by the way…). Not to mention finals are coming up…and I am outlining a potential novel (that will take forever because my skills are not yet honed). And then I have Oh-so many drawing requests and someone wants poetry for their significant other….frankly the list goes on and on.**

**Reviews are incredibly appreciated, if there are any GLARING errors, feel free to mention them, as well as being nit-picky as possible.**


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